The Mac Mini has always been one of my favourite Mac devices, with it being one of the first mini PCs that I can remember hitting the market, and whilst it’s always been a staple amongst creatives, the new M4 Mac Mini absolutely reinvents the device putting it in a league of its own, making it an easy recommendation for anybody looking for their next computer.
Whilst the M2 Mac Mini wasn’t large by any stretch, the re-designed M4 Mac Mini has less than half the physical footprint, so whilst it is a bit taller, it takes up a lot less space on the desk and it’s also a lot easier to throw in a bag, put in your entertainment unit, or pop behind your monitor (I put it behind my Studio Display for most of this week), and you’ll quickly forget it’s even there.
I’ll speak about performance in a little bit but the thermal system at play here is absolutely world-class and the smaller size would mean nothing if it meant having a noisier mini PC that ran louder, but no matter what I threw at the M4 Mac Mini, it stayed absolutely silent and I would constantly check to see if a noticeable amount of heat was emitting from the unit, and absolutely nothing, barely any noticeable difference from when it was turned off.
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The size isn’t the only difference about the new Mac Mini with a total new array of ports. The front features ports for the first time with two USB ports on the front as well as a 3.5mm headphone jack and on the back there’s three Thunderbolt 4 ports (Thunderbolt 5 on the M4 Pro), HDMI 2.1, an ethernet port as well a power port (with the power supply inside the Mac Mini despite its smaller size).
It’s fairly hard to complain with 5 USB-C ports on the Mac Mini. We were never going to get it, but I’d have loved a singular USB-A port just because there are still a fair amount of accessories that use USB-A, but I recognise that the need for one is getting less and less, and with 5 USB-C ports it’s super easy to attach a dongle.
The other major design change is the new location for the power button which is now on the bottom of the Mac Mini. I don’t think it’s a massive issue especially because if its stationary on your desk, I don’t think you’ll ever be turning it off, but if you’re someone that cares about everything being straight and proper on your desk and your cable management being perfect, I do recognise that having to lift the device to turn it on isn’t the most ideal of situations.
The M4 Mac Mini has been improved with Wi-Fi 6E which is a must-have in any 2024 device (I’ve got EERO Wi-Fi 6E mesh routers all around my house) as well as Bluetooth 5.3, so you’re sorted from a wireless connectivity point of view.
The hero here continues to be Apple Silicon with the M4 Chip clearly allowing for the size reduction, but also a considerable bump in performance. I moved my entire workflow to the Mac Mini for the last week, and that included editing 4K video, having dozens of tabs open at once, a number of Photoshop tasks and my regular day to day activities and thanks to the M4 chip and minimum 16GB of ram that is now included across the board, it got through everything with absolute ease, even though I was doing all of those tasks at once for majority of the week.
Only once or twice did it slow down for ever a second, when exporting a 4K video, whilst then doing another graphics intensive task, but I recognise that my workflows are probably a bit more intensive than most people buying the base model which at under $1,000 is honestly a steal for the performance that you’re getting here. It’s incredible value for money.
Whilst AAA gaming is only starting to hit its straps on Macs, there’s starting to be a solid little library there with big hitters such as Cyberpunk 2077 and Assassin’s Creed: Shadows still on the way. I played quite a bit of Stray and Death Stranding utilising the M4 chip and both ran well using Apple’s MetalFX upscaling. I say it in every Apple review, but Apple Arcade is also fantastic and has some genuine banger games like Balatro+ on it, among many, many other well-known franchises and all of those titles run well here.
The other part of the Mac Mini experience that I’ve been using is the Studio Display, and I don’t want to spend too much talking about it, but I do highly recommend it as it pairs perfectly with the Mac Mini. Not only does does it match the aesthetics perfectly, it also has a beautiful 27-inch 5K retina display that can connect through the Thunderbolt 4 Port. It also has a fantastic six-speaker system, microphones built into the monitor and a 12MP Ultra Wide centre stage webcam, in addition to giving you another three USB-C ports to work with as well. It’s absolutely on the pricier side, but it does pair perfectly with the Mac Mini and makes it an even more magical, seamless experience.
Despite my life revolving around tech, I’ve been a bit skeptical in AI improving my day to day life, but trust Apple to turn that around as my first taste of Apple Intelligence came with these M4 Macs over the last week, and I’m a massive fan.
The biggest one has been summaries which helps summaries bulk notifications among all of your apps but primarily Apple Messages, Mail and Facebook Messenger and as someone who receives dozens of notifications every minute across a number of group chats, email inboxes and Facebook groups, this is absolutely going to increase my mental wellbeing and productivity. It wasn’t always perfect, but I recognise that it’s still in beta and 98% of the time did an absolutely fantastic job at summarising notifications to either give me key information such as dates and times of events, or just give me the general gist to know whether a notification was worth opening.
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Similarly, Mail will now bring emails that it thinks might be more important based on timeliness or relevance to the top of your inbox, but it was a few other areas that really improved my day to day. Photos is hugely improved through with search now letting you give it much more specific queries and there’s a new clean-up feature similar to Google’s Magic Eraser that lets you very seamlessly edit out unwanted parts of photos.
I’m a big Focus mode user when I’m in meetings or really need to get something done and I spent multiple days this week using a new Apple Intelligence Focus mode called Reduce Interruptions and it was an absolute game-changer. This uses Apple Intelligence to only delivery you the most important notifications again based on timelines or from a loved one that might need need a direct response or something that is deemed to be an emergency. Again, it wasn’t perfect, but it more often than not only let through notifications that were those that actually needed a response and can only get better with time.
Another big one that I think a lot of people will get use out of is Writing Tools which can be used within any app to re-write chunks of text in a more professional or casual tone, or summaries chunks of text into lists. I’m not somebody that has used AI tools in this way (even though there’s a bunch available), and I recongise that a lot of people get use out of these, and it’s great that they’re so accessible here.
Another improvement is Siri, and I wasn’t able to make use of the new ChatGPT integration yet, but I was able to use the new experience that is re-designed but also makes the conversation flow a lot more naturally, and it’s a big improvement, and I’m excited to see where Apple take it.
The other big change that has just launched is MacOS Sequoia that I hadn’t used on my existing Macs, and there’s a lot of new features to love there too. iPhone Mirroring was a big one that I had used a lot during this week, with it allowing me to post to TikTok and Instagram without having to pickup my phone and a quick drop and drag from my desktop to photos app on my virtual phone allowing me to easily bring content across.
Something that has also finally hit the Mac is Windows Tiling, which allows you to quickly snap windows to parts of your screen, which is something I’ve relied on other apps for in the past, but to have that built right into MacOS now is a huge improvement.
All-in-all, you absolutely cannot go wrong with the new Mac Mini. Whether you’re somebody that just wants a smaller PC that is aesthetically pleasing on your desk, or someone that wants an absolute workhorse that can not only handle the day to day, but creativity tasks as well as AAA gaming, the Mac Mini does it all, at a fantastic low price, all whilst being really damn small.